Network access systems are becoming increasingly important in modern society. People from around the world may now utilize networks such as the Internet to remotely exchange data, information, and ideas. Further, network access systems may be important to companies and businesses worldwide. Many corporations have corporate local area networks (LANs) that employees and clients may remotely access. Additionally, network access systems are often utilized in electronic commerce, such as during Internet transactions, credit card transactions, and Automated Teller Machine (ATM) withdrawals.
Virtual private networks (VPNs) are emerging as an important type of network access system. VPNs may enable users to remotely connect to private LANs via public networks (e.g., the Internet). Before VPNs, large-scale private wide area networks (WANs) were often utilized for remote connections to a LAN, though such networks were often costly and required a complicated network topology. VPNs may provide the advantage of extending the network connectivity of LANs beyond their physical limits while reducing cost and simplifying network topology.
Since a VPN may use a public connection to transmit private data, a mechanism for securing data transmitted across such a network may be beneficial. In recent years, the Internet Protocol Security suite (IPsec) has emerged as an important standard for securing data transferred across a VPN. IPsec can utilize a number of encryption technologies (e.g., Diffie-Helman key exchange, public key cryptography) and authentication technologies (e.g., digital certificates) for securing packet-switched data. An IPsec header may contain an authentication header that helps ensure the integrity of transmitted data, and an encapsulated security payload (ESP) for securing transmitted data.
Furthermore, VPNs may utilize Quality of Service (QoS) to enable network service providers to offer differentiated levels of service to different users. For example, network service providers may use QoS to set a maximum latency, minimum bandwidth, and other such parameters for data transmitted across a VPN for a particular user. Furthermore, network service providers may charge a rate proportional to the QoS level (e.g., a lower rate for a basic service, and a higher rate for a premium service). A Type of Service (ToS) byte within a header of an IP packet may be utilized for specifying QoS. Furthermore, a variety of known protocols (e.g., Resource Reservation Setup Protocol (RSVP)) may be used to implement QoS in VPNs.
Despite these advantages, however, current VPNs that utilize IPsec and/or QoS may face a number of drawbacks. First, prior art systems, such as those utilizing RSVP, are typically not scalable. Furthermore, prior art VPNs using IPsec and QoS may not effectively load balance transmitted data, causing widespread delays and inefficient network usage. Additionally, prior art VPNs may not enable users to customize IPsec policy for different user domains and/or user sessions. Thus, all users may be offered the same level of security regardless of their individual security needs.
Accordingly, it is desirable to have a system and method for accessing a VPN that overcomes the above deficiencies associated with the prior art by utilizing virtual local area network (VLAN) tags.